'Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story' goes inside the character and the man
Sarah Townsend's comprehensive documentary uses home movies, interviews and performance footage to sketch a heartfelt portrait of the comedian-actor and the early tragedy that still drives him.
October 9, 2009
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Sarah Townsend's "Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story" illuminates the life and career of the protean, gender-bending comedian-actor through an astonishing collection of footage. Beginning with home movies from Izzard's childhood, the film moves through years of performances on the street and in small clubs to a triumphant West End debut, at which time he declared himself a transvestite, to his international acclaim as a stand-up comic and as a stage and screen actor.
This fine documentary, understandably years in the making, commences with Izzard's humiliating experience in being accused of using old material in a new show and unfolds as he launches a British workshop tour of his 2003 comeback, "Sexie," as a prelude to a world tour that culminated later that year in London's vast Wembley Arena, where he played before 44,000 fans over four days. Townsend's extensive interviews with Izzard backstage and elsewhere frame the performance footage as well as encounters and reminisces with friends, colleagues and fans.